Category: VIDEOS

We hope you had a happy Thanksgiving. Now that you’re awake again following your post-meal nap and the Falcons/Saints game is almost over, it’s time to celebrate with a song from MAGNET hero Ray Davies. Here’s a solo live clip of “Thanksgiving Day” from 2005. Read our cover-story Q&A with Ray done by Yo La Tengo’s Ira Kaplan.

Patrick Watson’s self-directed video for latest single “Melody Noir” (Domino) looks like a dream. The song was inspired by the music of Simon Diaz, a Venezuelan artist. What came out of this inspiration was a new kind of love song, one “dedicated to the hole inside you,” says Watson. The clip was shot in Montreal and is heavily focused on dancing and the meaning behind the song. Watch the video for “Melody Noir” now, and look out for Watson on tour in November, December and January.

“I Guess I Planted”
I guess I planted some long lonesome seed of a song
Way down inside me long ago
And now I can’t remember when it was
But it joined up with the rest of them and grows
It’s such a little song it don’t compare
With all your big ones you hear everywhere
But when it dawns way in the back of your mind
The big ones are made up of the little kind
Union song, union battled
All added up won us all what we got now
Union song, union battled
All added up won us all what we got now
I can’t even start to look around me here
Without hearing this song
And seeing all of us first separated
Hurt apart and afraid
Hungry for the union
And so we kept on
Singing and working, fighting till we got it
And this is the big union song I guess I hear
Union song, union battled
All added up won us all what we got now
Union song, union battled
All added up won us all what we got now
We fought there at your place
We fought there on your ship
And I guess if you missed out on
The fight for our union
You missed out on one awful big step
Us people took
Union song, union battled
All added up won us all what we got now
Union song, union battled
All added up won us all what we got now
Union song, union battled
All added up won us all what we got now
Union song, union battled
All added up won us all what we got now

When you’re living legend like John Print and you want to shoot a video at your favorite spots in Nashville, a lot of local friends will jump at the chance to be a part of it. Since Prine has been cooler than you for about half a century now, his Music City pals include the likes of Dan Auerbach, Jason Isbell, Sturgill Simpson, Amanda Shires, Dave Cobb, Elizabeth Cook, David Ferguson, Jeremy Ivey and Margo Price. The David McClister-directed clip for “Knockin’ On Your Screen Door” features all of them and more. The song is off latest album The Tree Of Forgiveness (Oh Boy), which Prine is supporting on tour for the rest of the year starting next month. Catch him live them, but for now, check out “Knockin’ On Your Screen Door.”

While most 14-year-old, music-obsessed girls sit in their bedrooms making playlists, Sevi Ettinger was instead writing songs to fill these playlists. And not just tunes about boys and, well, boys. No, Ettinger—an American living in Shanghai—was penning tracks like “Salty Water,” which addresses the Syrian refugee crisis that was upsetting her so much that she felt the need do something about it. So she picked up her smartphone and recorded “Salty Water” via an app and utilizing a backing track she found online that was written by Texas musician Nate McCray. Within an hour, the song was done.

After her father posted the track online, it was discovered by Phillip Jarrell, who co-wrote ’70s smash “Torn Between Two Lovers” (ask your grandparents, kids) and helped the now-15-year-old Ettinger make a video for “Salty Water.” Jarrell introduced Ettinger’s music to Grammy-winning producer Jeff Bova (Celine Dion, Cyndi Lauper, Katy Perry), who signed on to make a record with her. The result is the four-song Salty Water EP, out August 24 via Sevillana.

We’re proud to premiere the remarkable video for “Salty Water” by this up-and-coming talent today on magnetmagazine.com. Says the wise-beyond-her-years Ettinger, a successful fundraiser for UN refugee agency USA For UNHCR, of “Salty Water,” “I create music to give others a chance to be heard. When I was sitting in my room watching the Syrian refugees fleeing their homes, leaving everything behind, I knew they needed to be heard. My hope in writing the song is to share their voice, express their pain and show their tears. My dream is for all people to be free—to be who they want to be.”

Sunglass Moustache is not only the title of Ben Millburn‘s debut album but also the name of the group of musicians he surrounds himself with. The Austin-based, Louisiana-born musician will self-release the 11-track LP on September 14, and it comes after a handful of EPs he also issued himself. While Sunglass Moustache—made up of eight songs recorded in two days, studio improvisations and home-recorded material—isn’t a concept album, Millburn decided to make it just that via a series of 11 self-written and self-directed videos (one for each track on the LP) following a character named Mr. Tuxedo and, according to Millburn, “his rise and reign in power” as well as his adventures with Mustang Billy, Mr. Taco and others.

Since we’re premiering the clip for Mr. Tuxedo’s titular track today, we asked Millburn for some insight into the song and video. He responded, “The side effects of ambition, Frank Zappa, classical music, dub, Beck, YouTube interviews with Monica Lewinsky.” We’re guessing he’s talking about the song itself and not the video, but as Millburn is a guy who spends a lot of time with dudes named Mr. Tuxedo, Mustang Billy and Mr. Taco, we can’t be so sure.

Regardless, we’re proud to premiere the video for “Mr. Tuxedo” today on magnetmagazine.com. Watch it now, and as a bonus, here’s the album trailer for Sunglass Moustache:

Chelsea Wolfe’s gothic video for “The Culling,” off Hiss Spun (Sargent House), was inspired by 1996’s Baz Luhrmann-directed, Leonardo DiCaprio/Claire Danes-starring Romeo + Juliet. Filmed in Salem, Mass. (you know, home of the witch trials, kids), “The Culling” features Wolfe being possessed by a demon. The clip should get you in the mood for Wolfe’s fall tour with Russian Circles, which kicks off September 23 in San Francisco. Watch “The Culling” now.

Hot off an extensive U.S. tour this summer, including dates opening for Lake Street Dive, the Rad Trads are readying the release of sophomore album On Tap, out September 14. Of course, the NYC-based fivesome—known for its genre-defying, entertaining-for-everyone live performances—will immediately hit the road again for many more dates supporting the nine-track LP.

We’ve been racking our brains since we first encountered the Rad Trads, trying to think of another band that has five leader singers, but we couldn’t come up with any. That not one of these transplants from Portland, Chicago and Maryland had ever sung a note when they met at NYU’s Steinhardt music school is even more amazing. But given how the band deftly tackles (alphabetically) Americana, blues, folk, jazz, psych, punk, soul and more, it’s not surprising these guys seem like they can do whatever they put their minds to.

We’re premiering the video for On Tap track “Wishing Well” today on magnetmagazine.com, so we asked the song’s writer and singer, saxophonist/vocalist Patrick Sargent, for some insight into the track. Let’s just say he was as ambitious with his response as the band is with its music. “Truth be told, ‘Wishing Well’ was the first song I ever wrote, so the process of writing it was more like fumbling in the dark than chiseling marble,” says Sargent. “I think I was listening to a lot of Alabama Shakes at the time and was trying to write something that had the quality I was enamored of in their work: a hushed verse, an unhinged, raging chorus and kind of a soul-collides-with-rock thing, like Nirvana with Otis singing lead. In reality, my voice is closer to Randy Newman than Brittany Howard, so it came out a little different—but that’s the song I had in my mind’s eye. We played the song live for almost a year before recording it, so it had a chance to evolve organically before being put to tape. Both the drum solo and the background vocals were, like many great musical ideas, initially proposed in jest but quickly became integral to the song.

“Lyrically, it’s a pretty straight forward blues ballad with the narrator lamenting his loneliness and heartbreak at length before breaking down and begging his lost love, ‘I don’t wantcha, babe/But I think I need ya, babe/Now I’m pleading, babe/Tell me why did you leave my, babe,'” Sargent continues. “Live, it tends to feel less like a story song and more like an excuse for us all to play our instruments extra loud and for me to scream into the microphone. In the studio, we went for a pretty maximal psychedelic vibe, a big wall of sound with many layers of vocals and, of course, our signature soaring horns. We also added a second track of low, sludgy, horns on the chorus, so in addition to filling out the high range, we have a a big thick horn section filling out the bottom end of the track, kicking around in the mud where there’s normally only bass and guitar. We definitely had fun with this one and left plenty of mistakes and odd sounds in, so it feels very messy and live—as a song like this should.”

Not satisfied with learning more about “Wishing Well” (the song) than we have about any other song in history, we pressed Sargent for some info about “Wishing Well” (the video). And he didn’t disappoint, saying of the quirky clip, “We were all holed up in a house in Duck, N.C., that a local music festival had generously provided for us as lodging while we were performing there. Our friend/photographer John Carges was with us, and we were shooting a bunch of promo material when someone had the inspired idea that footage of us wailing on each other with pool noodles would go perfectly with the chorus of ‘Wishing Well.’ We made some margaritas, shotgunned a few beers and had ourselves a fun little video shoot. Months later, we decided to complete the video by shooting some footage of me wandering my neighborhood in the cold, bleak shittiness of New York winter, dreaming of poolside debauchery in North Carolina. We enlisted our good friend Kelly Teacher to shoot and edit the footage, and the rest is history.”

Well, there you have it, dear MAGNET reader. Sargent is definitely proud of his first-ever songwriting credit and its accompanying video, as he should be. It’s the perfect end-of-summer jam, tailor made for margaritas, shotgunning beers and living it up before the cold weather comes and you’re stuck dreaming of poolside debauchery in North Carolina. Check out “Wishing Well” now, and catch the Rad Trads when they come to your city.

Charlotte Gainsbourg impressively directed her new video for “Sylvia Says,” off last year’s Rest (Because Music); read our feature below. The clip begins by showing the everyday commute of workers after their nine-to-five jobs, but it quickly turns into an interpretation of what we cannot see, the subconscious of those walking next to us on that daily travel. The slow-motion mixed with high-speed shots creates a video you can’t look away from. Check it out now.

Kamasi Washington has a new video for “Street Fighter Mas,” off sophomore studio album Heaven And Earth (Young Turks). The theme for the A.G. Rojas-directed clip is inspired by the video game Street Fighter, which Washington loves to play. The sax player extraordinaire kicks off a European tour tomorrow in Ireland, so get your jazz-loving self in the mood by checking out the video for “Street Fighter Mas” now.